As the director of the Sleep Surgery Center at Mount Sinai, Dr. Fred Lin is an otolaryngologist who specializes in treating patients surgically for sleep apnea. He sees about 300-500 patients with snoring or sleep apnea a year. It’s only over the past few years that the public has become more aware of sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that affects more than 20 million Americans. “When patients with sleep apnea go into a deep sleep, the muscles that hold open their airway collapse and obstruct airflow, a process that happens over and over throughout the night,” says Dr. Lin. “The patient is jerked between deep sleep and light sleep, even awakening, as the brain recognizes suffocation and corrects for it.” Learn more